


Come Back To Me

by subtextismygod



Series: Reaching Out [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, draco and harry are couple goals, i just love this ship so much, third task au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtextismygod/pseuds/subtextismygod
Summary: “Be safe,” Draco whispered, quiet enough so only Harry could hear. “Get that cup, win, and get back to me safe, okay?”“Okay,” Harry whispered back.“Promise. Promise you’ll come back to me.” Draco’s voice cracked softly.Harry pulled him into a hug and held him close. “I promise,” he said into Draco’s ear. He let go far too soon.





	Come Back To Me

**Author's Note:**

> My first Drarry story was really liked (far more than I ever thought possible) so I decided to write a little sequel. Hope you all like it!

There had been whispers. During the months following the Second Task, the spectacle that Draco and Harry had created, people had looked at them in the halls, whispering behind their backs, silently judging them. It was hard, for a long time. Hard to watch these people that Draco had begun to trust ever so slightly turn on them.

They had all cheered, but it was a bandwagon. One person cheered, then so did others. But, that didn’t mean that they were supportive of Draco and Harry being… together.

It had been strange, for Draco to get into this new world of not having to hide himself. He could be with Harry without the worry of his judgment. They both had been the center of attention for so long: Harry as the Boy Who Lived, Draco as the son of a rich pureblood wizard who was thrown into the Slytherin stereotype of evil and cruelty.

They were still the center of attention, but for different reasons. People would stare in the hall, or avert their eyes as if they were disgusted by what they saw. Harry and Draco did little more than hold hands in public, using the Room of Requirement instead to have those moments of deep intimacy. Dumbledore, a man that Draco had thought to be cold and manipulative, had discreetly shown them the Room of Requirement, only crediting his kindness to memories.

But as time went on, there were less and less people who would shoot looks of disdain to them as they walked hand-in-hand. After a while, they became more comfortable displaying affection. A brush of a kiss, hugging and cuddling in classes that they shared. And even Ron Weasley and Granger had warmed to Draco.

He would call Ron ‘Weasel’ and Hermione ‘Granger,’ but now it wasn’t degrading or mean, he did it as their best friend's boyfriend and, even more importantly, their friend.

As the hype for the Third Task heightened, so did Draco’s concern for Harry. The Triwizard Tournament was known for putting the Champions in dangerous situations that ended in death more times than one. And the Third Task was likely to be the most dangerous of them all.

Draco hadn’t heard from his family in the months after the Second Task. He had been terrified of their disapproval, but he had heard not a word from either his mother or father. Sirius Black, who, Draco learned, was actually a very good man and Harry’s godfather, was very approving of their relationship, citing his relationship with their Defence Against The Dark Arts professor from the previous year.

He had hoped for some kind of reassurance from his mother, at least, when the day of the Third Task arrived. He had hoped that she would show up and be there to support Harry and her son. She hadn’t though.

It was a large maze, a maze that everyone had seen growing on the Quidditch field. This last challenge hadn’t been much of a secret, and Draco and Granger had both been very thorough in teaching Harry as many defensive and offensive and all-around useful spells that they could.

It still scared him that it wasn’t enough.

Breakfast in the Great Hall had been tense, everyone anticipating the result of the final Task. Harry had barely eaten a morsel, only taking a few bites out of an apple that Ron insisted he eat.

The walk down to the maze had been even tenser. Harry’s hand had been sweating in Draco’s, shaking and squeezing tightly in his grasp. “It’s going to be great,” Draco had tried to reassure him. “You’ll do amazing.”

“Thanks,” Harry had replied grimly.

He still looked nervous as they walked into the giant stadium. “I’ve got to go the stands, now,” Draco said. Harry knew that, but Draco knew that his voice could help calm his nerves. He had to do whatever he could to calm his boyfriend down.

Harry seemed to snap out of his daze, his eyes clearing as he looked down that little bit to have his eyes meet Draco’s. His instincts kicked in. “I’ll be fine, Draco.”

“Be safe,” Draco whispered, quiet enough so only Harry could hear. “Get that cup, win, and get back to me safe, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry whispered back.

“Promise. Promise you’ll come back to me.” Draco’s voice cracked softly.

Harry pulled him into a hug and held him close. “I promise,” he said into Draco’s ear. He let go far too soon.

On an impulse, Draco kissed Harry quickly on the mouth. “For good luck.”

“That’s all I get?”

“Come back alive and you’ll get more,” Draco said with a smirk. “I love you.”

The words were out before he could stop them. He hadn’t said that to Harry, not yet. He had told himself that he would say it when Harry won the Tournament, but they just slipped out.

Harry smiled and blushed softly. It was nice to know that even after all the time they had been together, Draco could still make Harry blush. “I love you, too.”

A bell sounded, signaling the fifteen-minute mark before the Task started. “You better win,” Draco said, then joined Granger and Ron at the stands. They had already wished Harry luck and dashed to find the best seats.

He squeezed in next to them, Granger pressing closer to Ron to give him room. “What’d he say?” Ron asked, leaning forward so he could see Draco past Granger.

“Nothing much,” Draco lied, but he was sure his smile gave it away.

Dumbledore explained the rules and mechanics of the Task, Draco zoning out to calm himself down. He knew that Dumbledore would never let one of his students be in so much peril that he would die, but Draco couldn’t escape the pit of fear that was causing butterflies to appear in his stomach.

Harry and Diggory entered the maze first, plunging into the hedges without looking back. _Good luck_ , Draco whispered in his mind. Then, even softer, as if people could hear his thoughts, _come back to me, Potter._

Twenty minutes passed, and Draco began to get impatient. He wrung his hands in nervousness and his mouth had gone dry.

Suddenly, a piercing scream sounded from the maze.

His first thought: _Harry._

Once he identified the scream as a girl's: _Fleur._

A red spark flew into the sky, exploding into a flare. Madam Hooch and two other wizards on brooms sped over to where the flare hovered, dragging an unconscious body into the air.

The stadium went silent as they brought Fleur to the center, her platinum hair spilled around her in a pool.

“She’s not moving,” Ron whispered. Ron reached over and grabbed Hermione’s arm. Granger, in turn, held her hand over his.

There was a collective sigh of relief as Fleur sat up, supporting herself on Madame Maxime, and limped off the field. With a magically amplified voice, Bagman explained the situation. “Miss Delacour was incapacitated in the maze by an unknown force. She is going to recover in the castle, under the care of Madam Pomfrey. She has withdrawn from the competition.”

Nobody cheered.

At least Fleur was safe.

“‘Unknown force?’” Granger said softly. “How could they not know what injured Fleur?”

Draco felt dizzy. If there was some unidentifiable variable in the maze, something not even the professors knew about…

Harry could be in serious danger.

An hour and a half passed and no other flares rose from the maze. Draco felt himself getting tenser.

_Crack!_

A small hand tugged at the bottom of Draco’s robes. He looked down and almost jumped. Granger and Weasley looked down, too, and Hermione was the one who spoke first. “Dobby?!”

“Come, quickly!” The house elf only said, and ran off. They exchanged looks of doubt.

“What if Harry comes out while we’re gone? What if something happens?” Ron said.

“I’ll go,” Draco volunteered. He trusted Dobby, for some reason he could not place. “You both stay here.

“Fine,” Granger said. “Ron and I will stay.”

Draco nodded and began to push his way out of the stands. Once he was on the grounds, he broke into a sprint. Dobby was below a tree by the lake. “Take my hands,” he said.

Hesitating for only a moment, Draco latched onto Dobby, and they disapparated.

A second after the black, suffocating feeling of apparating, Draco gleaned his surroundings as--

“The Room of Requirement?” he blurted.

“I apologize for the roundabout approach of getting you here,” a voice said from behind him. Draco recognized it instantly. "The Dark Lord has spies within Hogwarts."

“Mother?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Narcissa said. “Harry is in trouble. The Dark Lord is coming back tonight. He plans on killing Potter.” Narcissa ripped up her sleeve to reveal a jet black Dark Mark. A Dark Mark that had faded over time and never seemed so stark against her pale skin as it did now.

“We don’t have time!” Narcissa insisted. “We need to apparate to where He has called his Death Eaters. You have to save Harry.” Draco barely even heard her, he was so overwhelmed with fear for Harry. He needed to make sure he was safe, that he would be safe.

Draco grabbed his mother’s hand without hesitation and he was once again plunged into darkness.

The first thing Draco noticed once they appeared was the gravestone under his feet. Narcissa yanked them all down behind a large statue. Faintly, they could hear voices.

“--Lord has returned. _I_ have returned! Bow to your master.”

“You-Know-Who,” Draco whispered. Narcissa shushed him with a glare.

“Now, for you, Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived, now will die. Are you ready to die, Potter?” Voldemort’s cold voice sent shivers down Draco’s spine, like an innate feeling of fear for whoever’s mouth spoke in that voice. “ _CRUCIO!”_

A scream split the night air. This time, Draco could identify the scream in a second. His body went cold with fear as he heard Harry’s voice crack with screams of pain.

Everything went dark as black exploded behind his eyes. Every thought eddied out of his head as the scream went on and on and on, until only a few things remained. Flashes of memory, flashes of _Harry_.

He reached into his robes, deathly calm. He was going to kill Voldemort. He was going to torture him and make him feel real pain. He was going to _hurt_ him for even touching Harry.

Draco’s hand closed around his wand, and he moved.

He wrenched his arm out of his mother’s grasp and fell into a dead sprint. Behind him, he could feel the presence of his Mother. A circle of Death Eaters surrounded Harry and Voldemort, but Draco didn’t feel the instinctual fear that he should have.

Instead, adrenaline and rage and terror poured through him all at once and he slashed his wand through the air. “ _Sectumsempra!”_ he shouted, hitting two Death Eaters with his spell. They collapsed in pain. “ _Incendio!”_ Narcissa sent out spells of her own, cutting down Death Eaters like stalks of wheat.

Voldemort looked up from where he stood over Harry, his foot pressing down on Harry’s chest. The sight alone made another flood of hate and fury explode in Draco. The Dark Lord locked eyes with Draco, and they were something out of a nightmare. If Draco hadn’t had the adrenaline rush, he would have been petrified by his gaze alone.

But Voldemort had hurt Harry Potter.

And Draco was going to kill him for it.

“Draco Malfoy,” Voldemort drawled, the sound of his voice slithering and hissing. “I thought you would follow in your dear father’s footsteps. How wrong I was.”

He pointed his wand at Draco, his long, thin fingers barely holding onto the yew wood. The phoenix feather inside it stirring, the same phoenix feather as the one in Harry’s wand.

“Draco,” Harry croaked, his voice hoarse from screaming. It was so quiet, Draco barely heard it. But Voldemort did.

“Aah.” He smiled such a cruel smile that made Draco’s blood run cold. “This is _very_ interesting. Do you care for this boy, Potter?” Voldemort leaned down and ran his wand over Harry’s face in a gesture so intimate yet so cold that it made Draco feel wrath like the fury of a thousand archangels. He could faintly hear Narcissa dueling Death Eaters behind him, but he could only see Voldemort and Harry. He only noticed the blood that Harry coughed up.

And he decided one thing, right there, right then.

He wasn’t going to kill Voldemort.

He was going to make him wish he was dead.

“ _CRUCIO!”_ Voldemort screamed. The curse hit Draco before he could raise his want to defend himself.

Pain, unending, unrelenting, undiluted pain coursed through Draco. It filled every inch of his body and he screamed. At least, he thought he did. Maybe, that scream was his head and body screaming for mercy, for it to end, for Draco to black out from the pain. He heard screams, screams that were not his own, screams that he recognized at Harry’s. Harry was screaming for him, screaming his name over and over.

Voldemort smiled thinly. “Look around you. You have lost.”

He looked at Harry, his nose bleeding now. His eyelids fluttered as he flitted in and out of consciousness. Another wave of anger washed over him, but it was muted, muffled. Harry mouthed something. _Run. Please._

“How does it feel, boy, to be beaten?” Voldemort sent a flash of red light at him and he was consumed in pain once again. Fire lanced through his bones and his head felt like it was being split into millions of pieces. Harry had felt this pain, this agony. He had endured who knows how much of it and withstood it. He was laying on the ground, tortured beyond compare, feeling pain that was unimaginable to anyone who had not experienced the Cruciatus curse.and that made Draco realize something.

There was one thing that Voldemort had not anticipated.

He had collapsed onto the grass, his head hitting a gravestone. He could feel blood dripping from his head and down onto his cheek. Pain still coursed through his body, but he pushed it aside. If this is what Harry felt, then Voldemort would feel it too. Draco would make sure of it.

He stood, some way, somehow, he stood and pointed his wand straight at Voldemort. “ _Crucio._ ”

As he expected, Voldemort deflected it, but he sent spell after spell at the Dark Lord. Voldemort shielded from one after another, too busy protecting himself he couldn’t attack Draco as he grabbed his boyfriend’s and hauled him towards the Triwizard Cup. Dumbledore had said that it was a portkey, so it must be able to transport them back to Hogwarts.

“Wait,” Harry said. “Cedric.” Draco was distracted for a moment, pausing his spells to look over to a body, partially concealed by headstones. But he was unmistakable, nonetheless.

“We can’t get him,” Draco said, already straining to keep Harry supported.

“We have to,” Harry insisted. “Keep Voldemort busy.”

He slipped out of Draco’s arm and crawled to Cedric.

But in the moment where Draco was distracted, Voldemort sent a single spell towards him.

The spell hit Draco square in the back.

 _Sectumsempra,_ he would later learn that it was called. The Dark Lord had learned that particular one from Severus Snape, and it combined his two favorite things. Torture and killing.

Torture was something _sectumsempra_ did particularly well.

It felt like he was being sliced with a million knives, tearing and ripping his skin into shreds. He screamed, he was sure of it. He screamed so loud that his voice cracked then cut out, his vocal cords unable to continue the long, prolonged scream. He wasn’t sure if the wetness on his face was blood or tears or a mix of both.

Then, blackness spread over him like a blanket.

There was a hand holding his tightly. Harry.

“How did this happen?” Dumbledore was asking Harry. “How did Malfoy get into the maze?”

Draco moved his hand a bit, trying to feel out how he felt. He began to recognize the healing ward.

Harry noticed Draco stirring and entirely ignored Dumbledore. His face lit up and a smile spread across his lips. “Hey,” he said softly. He reached up and brushed a stray piece of hair out of Draco’s face. His eyes were a little teary behind his glasses, but he made no movement to wipe them away. “How are you feeling?”

Dumbledore, seemingly unwilling to get in between their moment, made an exit to talk to Madam Pomfrey.

Draco couldn’t answer, his mouth was so dry and his throat hurt.

“It’s okay,” Harry said when he realized that Draco couldn’t talk. “You came back to me.”

Draco squeezed Harry’s hand tightly in return.

That was all he needed to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos if you liked it. Comments are really appreciated, too, and make my day. It means a ton to me that you all like my writing, so let me know if you want me to keep doing updates to this series!


End file.
